


In Step With You

by shineeboi



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-13
Updated: 2017-06-27
Packaged: 2018-10-31 04:18:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 7,144
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10891548
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shineeboi/pseuds/shineeboi
Summary: Xu Minghao is a freshman at Pledis High School. He decided to join the school marching band. Little did he know that this would be one of the best decisions he made in his life.





	1. Chapter 1

“SET AT THE TOP OF THE SHOW”  
Another one? *sigh* A large crowd of people raced to their dots at the top of the show. Everyone got into their doll poses. The pit started playing signalling that we had begun the final run of the day.  
“Down 2 3 hold 2 3 up 2 3 SNAP” Everyone counted their moves. Once the flute solo began the front 2 rows spilled out of the ‘house’ which really was a bunch of windows and doors constructed out of PVC pipes. We ran out looking like we had just woken up from being dolls and were finding our balance again. After the trumpet solo started everyone hit their scatter set. “Up 2 3 Down 2 3” We started to move toward the our next spot. Just like that we ran through the entire show.  
If you were confused, hi my name is Minghao. I’m 2nd chair flute and a freshman. I’m in this great thing called marching band at Pledis High School. If you know anything about band you might be wondering how a freshman managed to get 2nd chair. You probably think that I’m a really good musician to have that placement, but the reality is that there are only 3 flutes and I’m slightly better than Hansol which is the other flute. We’ve been doing this for roughly 4 months now. According to the upperclassmen this year’s show which is called Behind the Walls is a lot better than the other shows they have done. So, it’s very exciting for everyone. Another thing is this year we moved up to 2A because we gained a lot more people. We’ve only gone to one comp so far but we won first(!) there. We’re busily preparing for our next comp which is in a week.  
“MINGHAO!!!”  
Hmmm… I wonder who that could be. Just kidding, I know exactly who that is. A body slammed into me. Their arms wrapped around me. Great.  
“God dammit Mingyu. How many times have I told you that I hate hugs.” It was none other than my good friend Mingyu who plays the trumpet.  
“Sorry, but not really. Have you heard? We’re going against SM High at the next comp. I heard that SM won champs last year with a score in the 90’s. Our only score is in the low 60’s. We’re so screwed.” He squeezed me even harder. 

“Everyone gather around the 50.” The entire band ran to the front of the field where the front ensemble or pit was.  
“Great job everybody. I have a few quick announcements to make. First of all make sure to practice your music to make sure we don’t have any mistakes at all. Second, remember to retain all of what we did today. Realize that the comp is a lot closer than you think, 1 week isn’t a lot of time to perfect what we have. Again good job. Seungcheol anything you want to add?” Our instructor said.  
“Yeah, ummm. Good job, I’m really enjoying watching this come along.” Our drum major added.  
Knowing that nobody else had anything to add we gathered in a circle and Seungcheol yelled “Pledis on 3, 1 2 3”  
Everyone yelled ‘PLEDIS’.  
“Freshmen, help the pit.” Haha that’s funny. I ignored the instructor and instead carried 2 props to the truck. The props aren’t going to move themselves, but the pit can definitely move their own instruments. I grabbed all of my stuff and walked back to the band room with Mingyu. Once we made it to the band room I could see that the gag trio had already started messing around. Seokmin was playing Careless Whisper on the saxophone really loudly with Seungkwan attempting to play it on clarinet (didn’t work). Soonyoung was trying to mess them up as much as he could by playing rips and the show, and screaming. Mingyu then told me that his parents were waiting and he needed to leave. I said goodbye. *oomph Another hug. Ugh. I watched Mingyu walk out but before he left he said something to Wonwoo, a bass drummer. Interesting. A laugh drifted in from outside of the band room and in walked probably the only popular kid in band. It was none other than Junhui. Whom of which I hate. This is roughly what I go through everyday.


	2. CH 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Preparing for the Comp

SKIP TO THE DAY BEFORE THE COMP  
“Reset at the top of the show”  
Everyone ran to the back of the field, some people dragging along props, others muttering ‘set at the shop of the toe’. I stopped at my dot at the top right corner of the block. Chan, a color guard member, who’s set right in front of me was in charge of closing/opening the door when the show started. “dut dut dut dut,” the drumline was being like drumline and always dutting as a countoff. We ran through the show and everyone was sweating profusely due to the physical aspects of marching band that anyone not in band doubts.   
“Everyone gather ‘round the 50,” the instructor yelled. So we did. “Good job on the hard work today and remember to give it your all tomorrow.”  
“YES SIR,” yelled the band.   
“Seungcheol anything to add?”  
“Yes. Good luck everyone. I’m sure we’ll do fine. Call time is at 9:00 be there earlier than the calltime in case something does wrong. Jisoo made a checklist to remind everyone on what to bring. It’s things like gloves, a black shirt, long black socks, etc. Gather around everyone,” (We did) “Pledis on 3, 1 2 3” “PLEDIS!!”   
We’re having our 2nd comp tomorrow and it’ll be exciting. We’ve already beaten 3 of the schools we’re going against, I’ve heard that SM is really good and I haven’t heard of big hit high school or the other one I don’t remember the name of. *oomph. I wonder who that could be.   
“What do you want from me Mingyu?” I asked.  
“Nothing and everything.” he replied.  
“What’s that supposed to mean?”  
“Dunno”  
“GROUP HUG?” a very excited Soonyoung shouted.  
Oh no. He squeezed both of us until we couldn’t breathe. When he finally let go I fake coughed. Mingyu started laughing at me. He’s such a great friend. I turned around and saw Junhui watching us. When he saw me look at him, he quickly turned away and started talking to Jeonghan. Strange. 

“Nobody likes you. You're ugly. You're going to be single your entire life. You're untalented. You're never going to accomplish anything later in life.”  
I felt a tear roll down my cheek. I layed down on my bed and looked up at the ceiling. My head throbbed because of the sheer amount of thoughts going through my head.   
Hopeless and feeling really bad I tried to fall asleep again.   
“Ugly. Faggot. Nerd.” All things people probably refer to me as. It's not a surprise to anyone that I in fact to like boys because nobody in band is completely straight. Which means Junhui is also gay or at least not straight. Agh，don’t think that way.   
My parents refuse to believe there's anything wrong with me so I've never been taken anywhere to be diagnosed with anything but honestly I think I have some sort of depression. And probably anxiety as well.   
I turned over to the other side hoping that would help me fall asleep.   
Sigh, I wish there was someone to take my mind off of these things, but there's never going to be one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The end was kind of crap in this chapter, I was trying to make it sweet, but in the end it turned out to be absolute bs. I hope you enjoyed anyway.


	3. CH 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's the day of the Comp, Minghao couldn't be more indifferent.

It was the morning of the comp. (yay!) I ran around the house looking for the things I had planned on bringing. Where are those socks that I put right there *huff*. Oh wait there they are. (To the cat): “Why do you have to sit on my clothes, but luckily I was already wearing my band shirt. Ha, you can’t destroy everything I own.” Eventually I found everything I needed including the gloves I may or may not have stolen from my middle school (whoops). I shoved everything into my backpack, and sped out the door. When I arrived at Pledis there were already a lot of people getting ready, packing the truck, and inspecting if their shoes were in their garment bag along with their uniform. Once all the buses arrived, all 70 band kids filed out of the band room to board the bus. This comp was going to be in West Ranch which is about 2 hours away which isn’t too bad. I claimed a seat all to myself and started listening to music. And then we were off. On the way there, the kid sitting in the seat across the aisle was listening to some heavy metal and pretending to do the instrumentals and vocals. 2 hours man, 2 hours of nonstop heavy metal. *sigh* Anyway, when we reached the school we were given a lot of snacks to choose from. We were jokingly instructed by the upperclassmen and the instructors to not look at the other schools or else our eyes would fry. I ran to Mingyu, who was talking to Jihoon the drumline member and Chan the color guard member.   
“Hey Mingyu did you get your instrument yet?” I asked.  
“Not yet, did you?”  
“Nope, actually I think they might be unpacking the props still”  
“Oh” Mingyu then went back to the food table and grabbed more things to eat.   
“Everyone on a prop please get your prop and bring it over to the field area,” the instructor shouted. I’m have a PVC window, so I headed over to where the props had been unloaded to and grabbed a random window to bring over to the field. I think we looked really strange, a line of people carrying PVC windows and doors walking across a high school.   
When I got back to our area I looked around, the gag trio were being weird as usual, Wonwoo was practicing on a drum pad while eating (such skillz), Hansol and Jisoo were conversing, and Jun was on his phone texting people or looking at memes, the world may never know. *sigh* I went back to the food table to grab some more food for later when the instructors said, “Everybody, you have 10 minutes to get into half-dress, get your shakos out of the boxes and remember to grab a plume, set up your instruments and get into line. We’re getting ready to tune and warm-up”  
*sigh* We’re going first in 2A, so it’s still quite early. I grabbed my flute and walked towards where the uniforms were lying. I made the stupid mistake of leaving my uniform out in the sun, so it was really hot. I put my pants over my shorts and made sure that my legs didn’t show, put on my shiny marching band shoes and folded up my jacket. I walked to where the shakos were and my trusty friend Mingyu threw me my shako (not hat, unless you want to run a mile). Then I got in line behind the first flute, but in front of Hansol who was lost on what we were doing and we started walking towards warm up area B (in step, obviously). At Area B everyone stacked their instruments (not on top of each other, obviously). We started doing physical warm ups such as weird arm exercises and stretching. Then came the warm-ups (dun dun dun) which was just playing the show in an arc and doing the visuals in place. Then we got the signal that we were to head over to the field. We put our jackets and shakos on, got into a line and headed to the field (in step, obviously). When we reached the field, everyone on a prop got their prop and headed onto the track in preparation for setup.   
“Pledis High School you may take the field” an announcer said.  
Battery started their beat and we marched onto the field. After we had set up all of the props in the correct places, we got into our starting position. A couple of the upperclassmen said, “Remember to sway and watch Seungcheol for his cue.” We all nodded and started swaying.   
“Pledis you have 1 minute to get your band ready.”  
That was the cue to begin, so we did. Dino had the color guard solo as an introduction. He had to act like a small child closing the dollhouse which wakes the dolls up. The band is supposed to be dolls or puppets and the battery/drumline is supposed to be toy soldiers. When the door was shut we awakened and filed out of the ‘house’. The show isn’t done yet, so we ended in the middle of the show. I think this was one of the worst runs we have done of this show and it looks like everyone agrees. We trudged off the field and to where our stuff was. Junhui and I are now assigned to carry a window off together now. I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or not. He offered to carry the prop after we got off the field and I let him because I almost passed out from exhaustion and the heat on the way back. Everyone looked quite worried, that is with the exception of Junhui who was kind of laughing at me. *hmph* Mean. I disassembled my instrument and started taking my uniform off. After making sure everything was in my garment bag, I went back to the food table to grab some more food for later. After a few words of disappointment from the instructors we were told to head to the stand to watch the other bands in the 2A division.   
When we got to the stands, we had just barely missed the performance by SM high school which was sad. I really wanted to see them perform. The school performing next was JYP high school. They had black uniforms and I felt quite bad for them because the turf made it even hotter. Their show was very jazzy. I liked it. They probably were better at playing than us, but according to my research they didn’t do too well at their previous comp. The next school which I don’t remember the name of had a kind of offensive show. The theme was “around the world”, so they played music from different areas of the globe. They had some things in their show that people could’ve gotten really offended about. After that was big hit High School. According to my research, they did quite well at their previous comp. When watching their show I didn’t think they were all that good. They just looked like they had a lot of funding because they had really fancy props. Our props were built by the students and the money for materials came from the students as well. After watching them I went down to the concession stands to look around. There was a booth selling band t-shirts. I bought one that I found cool. I was a bit sad they didn’t have a shirt with a flute pun on it.   
I walked back to the stands with Mingyu, Wonwoo, and Hansol.   
“What place do you think we got?” asked Hansol.  
“I think we got either 2nd or 3rd place.” I responded.  
“How do you know we didn’t get 1st?” Mingyu asked.  
“According the upperclassmen, SM is really good and probably won either 1st or sweepstakes. And according to my research big hit is doing really well this well.” I said.  
“Let’s see what we get. We still don’t how well the other schools did. There’s always a possibility that we did worse than the other schools.” Wonwoo said.  
So, we walked back to where the rest of the band sat. I sat down next to Junhui who was talking to Jihoon. I turned to the field because awards were about to begin. The announcer went through 1A first and I could feel myself get increasingly worried and anxious.   
“Moving on to the 2A division. In third place with a score of 62.70… JYP”  
The representatives from JYP went and got the band trophy.  
“In second place with a score of 65.10… Pledis”  
Reps from our school went and got our trophy.   
“In first place with a score of 68.30… SM”  
What? That means. “The Sweepstake for band with a score of 76.60… big hit.”  
I could hear a mutter go through our band. Everyone seemed to be saying the same thing; how did they win, their show wasn’t even that good.   
We walked back to our bus, everyone very obviously disappointed. We all knew that we were going to get a long lecture about not trying hard enough and how only having a 0.2 point difference from our previous score wasn’t going to get us anywhere. We boarded the bus really gloomily.  
I put my earbuds in and stared out the window. As the bus ride progressed I could feel myself losing my mind more and more. Looking around I could see people talking happily with each other. Why can't I be like that. I use happiness and humor to cover up my problems and the fact that I kind of want to throw myself off a bridge.   
After getting back to Pledis I walked back to the band room and put my uniform where it’s supposed to go.   
“You look worse than the Disneyland trip last year.” said Seokmin.  
“Nice to know.” I replied back. I walked out and waited at the back parking lot near the band room.  
I got home at around 6:30 PM which isn’t too bad saying that we got back at midnight last comp and that was only because the awards incorporated all bands 1A through 6A. Normally awards are only 1A and 2A. I thought over everything I did wrong. That mistake in the visual in movement 2, stopped breathing properly halfway through the show and stopped playing. I can’t even practice musically because my flute is still the truck at school. Argh. Out of pure annoyance I decided to sleep


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Preparations for the next comp.

SKIP TO WEDNESDAY BEFORE THE COMP  
On Wednesdays we have practice from 5:00 to 8:00 PM. There’s a 2 hour gap between when school is over, but most of the band decides to stay at school. Some of the upperclassmen go to restaurants together, but some just mess around in the band room. Normally I sit at the corner of the room watching everything that is happening. Color guard tends to talk about the weirdest stuff ever. Once they were talking about the difference between whores, hoes and sluts. When I told Junhui this as we were walking to the lower field he decided to want to figure it out too. He’s really strange, still hate him though. I got the misfortune of being placed next to him at the end of movement 4 and all of movement 5. We all had to pass down our dot sheets and I got Junhui’s crumpled up dot sheet. He apologized and said that he wouldn’t crumple it again in case we had to pass it down again. When we were learning the dots for movement 5, Junhui decided it would be fun to annoy me and flick a quarter he found in his pocket at me over and over again yelling, “Why didn’t you catch it.” At first I tried to catch it, but after it happened five times I quit. He also for some reason thinks it's a good idea to tell me whether or not he showered. I don't want to know.  
I then saw a bunch of people gathering at one side of the track meaning it was almost time to run. Because band counts as a PE class we have to run miles every wednesday, but this year we appear to have done a really horrible job at doing so. I ran with Mingyu at first, but then he started slowing down so I left him. He is much more of a sprinter than a long distance runner.  
Then it was time to start the actual practice. We spent the next thirty minutes doing musical rehearsal, because movement 5 sound really bad as of now. I still don’t know how to play all of it. After the musical part of rehearsal came the visual and musical part of the rehearsal where we just clean up the drill. A new visual was added to movement 1 yesterday and everyone has been butchering it nonstop. I don’t think we’ve successfully done it yet which is kind of sad. By the end of rehearsal many things were much more clear than before. After announcements everyone packed up. Jisoo, Seokmin and I went and carried the props to the truck. All of us were carrying 2 or 3 props because the entire band’s supposed to help, but no one helps because they’re lazy. Soonyoung was waiting at the truck to help pack it up. He opened the door and we lined the doors and windows up.  
“Put the doors in first. They’re easier to organize.” Soonyoung said.  
“OK”  
Jisoo grabbed a door and turned it sideways so that it would fit in the truck. Soonyoung, who was standing in the truck, grabbed it and set it down on the bottom of the truck. Seokmin then lifted another door and put it into the truck. We repeated this process until all the props were in the truck. Soonyoung shoved all the props to the back of the truck, shut the door and jumped out. If the props weren’t packed systematically they wouldn’t fit and the door of the truck wouldn’t close. We don’t have very much funding for the music program, so we have a really small truck compared to most of the other schools we see at competitions. Even our ‘rival’ starship high school has a huge truck, because their school is full of really rich people so they actually get funding. They're not really our rival because we cheer for each other and most of our band gets along with one another. We won’t actually go against them because this year they’re in 1A and we’re in 2A. They’re still doing better score-wise than us. A lot of the upperclassmen know a bunch of people from starship and we sometimes cheer for each other. We then headed to the band room where everyone else was.  
In the band room I could see the couples were doing their thing. Jisoo had walked over to Jeonghan and hugged him. Soonyoung had walked over to the drum room to talk to Jihoon. I don’t really understand how they get along so well because they’re so different from each other. They folded their fingers together and walked out of the room. I walked over to the parking lot closest to the band room to wait for my mother.  
SKIP TO FRIDAY  
Today we’re going to some high school for a football game and tomorrow is the comp in Simi Valley. The entire band filed into the two buses that were prepared for us. I went as far back as I could and sat down. I could tell that some people really didn’t want to be there *cough cough Jeonghan*. I’m not a huge fan of football because I don’t really know what’s happening half of the time.  
I sat down next to Junhui because there was no other place to sit. He started texting his friends as usual. After a bit he started laughing randomly. I looked at him confused and he showed me the text. His friend was annoyed because he was about to kiss a girl but his mother called him inside. I didn’t think it was very funny, but apparently he did. As the game progressed, we got closer. Literally closer. At the beginning of the game we were 2 feet apart, by the end we were basically touching. He put his arm around me and leaned his head on my shoulder. Kind of uncomfortable for me. He stayed like that for 2 minutes and then turned to the person next to him. I listened to their conversation and from what I could hear, they were trying to convince each other that the other one was gay. It ended with the kid deepthroating his clarinet. Band kids are so strange. Myself included.  
When the game was over and we were walking back to our bus, I talked to Jisoo. He’s graduating this year so he’s seen it all. The band was being weird and playing Chameleon as per usual and being memes as usual again.  
“Look at them.” I said.  
“Yeah, when we’re gone next year, this band is actually going to be a meme band.” he responded.  
“Well you don’t have to deal with it, but I do.”  
“It won’t be too bad.”  
“Yeah, we’ll see.”  
We got on the bus and headed back to Pledis.  
“Hey Minghao, can you put Junhui’s clarinet back into the band room? I have to go.” Jisoo said.  
“Yeah, sure.” He handed me the clarinet and left. I walked down to the band room with my newly acquired clarinet. I put his instrument in the instrument storage room, stuffed my flute in my backpack and headed to the parking lot. 

I walked into my room and plopped down on my bed. For review I opened the recording of Wednesday's run and watched myself. The visual in movement one is still trash and I could hear the instructors laughing at us and saying that we needed to practice that. *sigh, tomorrow is going to be a long day.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Another comp has arrived

“So I hear Junhui is bothering you. I’ll kill him for you.” I say to someone who seems familiar for some reason.  
“He keeps bothering me in math. If certain things get out, I’m screwed,” the person says.  
“As I said, I’ll kill him for you.”  
“Why can you do that.”  
“He’s my boyfriend.”

I opened my eyes. What a strange dream. Junhui as MY boyfriend. Unbelievable. Never going to happen. 

(Or is it)

Where are those socks again. I swear to god Fluffball, why do you keep stealing my socks. I need them for band. Black shirt, check. Black shirt, check. Hair bands(don’t ask), check. Phone and headphones, check. Money for food and fun stuff, check. Jacket in case it gets cold, check. Seems like I have everything. I ran out of the house and to the school.  
I got there a bit later than usual and ended jokingly chastised by Junhui who shook his head at me and said, “You’re 2 minutes late. How dare you.”  
I shoved him away. He started laughing at me. *hmmph* mean. I ran to the back of the room to grab my uniform. Jacket, check. Pants, check. Shoes, check. Gloves, check. Sash, check. Seems like everything’s in place. I ran outside and hung my uniform with the rest of the band’s.   
“Hey Mingyu.”  
“Hey Minghao”  
“Are you excited?”  
“Hell yeah I am.”  
“We’re going against SM again.”  
“Yeah, I know. They’ll probably get Sweeps and we’ll get first if none of the other schools are good.”  
“None of the other schools are too good. We’ve beaten one of them already and I’ve never heard of the other 2. I doubt they’re any good.”  
“Yeah, that’s a relief. The buses are apparently here, so let’s walk over there.”   
“OK.”  
We grabbed our uniforms and headed over to where the buses were and where everyone else was. We put our garment bags into the bottom of the bus and piled into the bus. My friends all went to the very back and sat down. I once again claimed a seat to myself so I could watch kpop without people judging me. I leaned against the window and looked around. Everyone was talking to each other. I’m happy everyone became friends with each other. Although I do wish I had made some new friends, but it's not my fault i have trust issues. I'm not even sure where my trust issues are from. I put in my headphones and put on my playlist of all of my favorite music which is anything from twenty one pilots to SHINee.   
After about 2 hours of being on a bus with way too many people we finally reached our destination. We piled out of the bus muttering ‘thank you’ to the bus driver and headed towards the snack table. There was a ridiculous amount of cheese for some reason, so I grabbed one. Junhui walked over to me and saw me grabbing cheese so he grabbed one too.  
“Y’know, I found one of these in my pocket in math class, so I decided to eat it. It was all squishy and gross.” Junhui said.  
“Eww, some people are eating here. I don’t want to hear about the cheese you found in your pocket.” said Soonyoung who had overheard what Junhui had said.  
Junhui just laughed and grabbed another bag of chips. He patted my head and walked away. Strange. I watched him walk away. I hate his overly attractive face. Wait Minghao, do not think that way. You don't like Junhui, you don't find him attractive. Just think of how much you hate him.  
I wandered around a bit more and helped Soonyoung and Jihoon unpack the truck. (woop woop, third-wheeling) I carried the instruments aside and sorted them by section. By the time I had finished sorting the instruments Soonyoung and Jihoon were sitting at the edge of the truck hugging and laughing. Jihoon is very scary during practice because he, unlike many others, understands that everyone is affected if even one person misses something. What my instructor likes to say is, “Always give your 120%. That way even if something goes wrong we’re still at 100%.” Seeing Jihoon smiley is kind of scary now. Should I be scared or confused. I’ll be both, scafused.   
“You have 10 minutes to get into uniform.”  
Everyone walked over to their uniform bags. I put on my gloves, pants, and shoes, and then walked over to grab my shako and a plume. I left my jacket folded next to my flute and went to bring my prop over to the field with the rest of the prop people. Once we got back we got in line with the rest of the band and walked over to Warm Up Area E. We did our usual stretches and warmups which consisted of weird hand stretches that are really painful and playing the show in place while doing the visuals. I’ve seen photos of us doing that and it looks really funny and we all look really stupid. We did one last tune and headed to the field or more where we left our props, then the field.   
When we reached the field after getting the props we lined up in our starting order and faced away from the band performing. I’m not actually sure why we have to do that, we were just told it wasn’t allowed. The school before us was playing The Incredibles (love this) and they sounded wayyy better than us.   
“Good Luck” “Thank you” The instructors went by every band member and wished us luck and gave us a high five.  
Once the school before us had finished, we lined up closer to the field and waited for the judges to call us off. *deep breaths* Calm down Minghao, you can do this. You've done this before. I’m kind of worried because of last comp which was a fail.   
“Pledis you may take the field.”  
With Drum Captain Jihoon’s beat we marched onto the field in a very messy fashion. I placed down my prop where it belongs and walked over to my dot at the corner of the block.   
“Pledis you have 1 minute to get ready.”  
With that the intro to our show started playing.   
“From the city of Goleta under the direction of Seungcheol Choi, Simi Valley is proud to present Pledis High School.”  
Seongcheol put his hands up signaling ‘set’ which for us meant getting into our doll positions. We ran out of the ‘doll house’ towards our first set. We hadn’t performed the entire show at a comp yet so I thought that was pretty cool.  
We got into our almost company front at the end of the show, played a chord and then turned around and ran back into the doll house for the final pose. We stayed in that position until Jihoon once again started a beat signaling for us to get off the field. Junhui and I walked toward our prop and carried it off the field. Once we were off the field, he took the prop and carried it back himself claiming I was too weak to carry it. I took his clarinet.  
“How do you think we did?” Junhui asked.  
“I think we did alright.” I replied.  
“I think we definitely did better than last time.”  
“Definitely.”  
He turned to Seungkwan and tried bugging him, but that didn’t work, for Seungkwan was too busy worrying about Hansol who didn’t look too good. Once we got back to our area, we gathered around the instructors who would give a short speech and then tell us what to do and when to be back there. The homecoming dance is today, so the people going to homecoming are leaving early to prepare for the dance while everyone else stays at the comp and receives the award. I’m not going because fuck school dances. Mingyu isn’t going to the dance, but he’s leaving early anyway, so I’m alone with Seokmin, Soonyoung, Jihoon, Wonwoo, Junhui and other people I don't know the name of. The people who aren’t going to homecoming headed toward the stands to watch the rest of the 2A bands. When we got there, we once again missed the SM high school performance and were just in time for JYP’s performance. Why does this keep happening. I watched JYP’s performance and decided I was bored after it and went down to the concession stands with Seokmin to get food. Once we got there we realized there wasn’t really anything worth buying we both bought cotton candy and headed back up. In each of the shows I decided it would be fun to point out all of the mistakes I saw in all of the shows.   
“Not an arc.” “Off step.” “Cracked note.”  
The last school that went had probably the worst show I’ve ever seen. They were pretty good at playing the music, but they spent most of the time just standing in one place.   
Then it was awards time. Our drum major Seungcheol decided to go to homecoming so Soonyoung went to get the awards instead. I tuned out a lot of the awards and clapped when everyone else clapped.  
“First place in the 2A Maroon Division with a score of 68.1… Pledis High School.”  
We stood up and cheered and did our weird salute thingy that always turns into the Nazi salute.  
In the end we ended up receiving first place in band, battery and guard while SM received 6 out of 7 of the Sweepstakes awards. We haven’t won a single Sweepstake yet and we probably never will. Our score isn’t super good and is probably not good enough to get us to champs. We have a curse where we go to champs every 3 years and we want to break it really badly. After getting the trophies we headed back to the buses where the parents had brought pizza for us to eat. The band, like a hungry pack of wolves, surrounded the pizza and devoured it in a matter of minutes. Junhui headed towards me.   
“Hey, how are you?”  
“I'm fine, how about you?”  
“Good.”  
One of his friends ran over and said, “I just went to where SM is, and I took this picture.” The picture was the SM band standing around their 6 huge trophies. He went around showing everyone, leaving everyone either envious, or fuming.  
After pizza and talking we piled onto the bus and headed back towards school.   
Overall, I think today was a good day for the 2016 Pledis High School band.


	6. Chapter 6

Somehow our school got into the CIF finals or whatever it’s called for football, so we now have another home football game. *urgh. I hate going to these football games. I stayed after school because going home for only 1 hour wasn’t worth it. I sat in my usual corner of the band room and watched everyone be weird. At one point, most of the upperclassmen had left so the room was annoyingly quiet. Normally I like the quiet, but the band room being quiet is very confusing because it’s always loud due to the excess of teenager being playing random songs with their instruments. The songs include All Star, Careless Whisper, Chameleon and We Are Number One. I pulled out my phone and decided to watch some sick DCI shows.  
It’s now 5:00 and a lot of people are showing up, because even though the call time is 5:30, it really means that we have to be ready by 5:30. Due to the abundance of time, we decided to play human tic-tac-toe. We have this shelf that is a square divided up in 9 squares which makes a perfect tic-tac-toe board. We decided to play hornline vs drumline. In the first round Seungcheol made some good choices and won the game. He jumped around trying to hug everyone. The drum captain then suggested the game of trying not to have 3 in row. If you get 3 in a row, you lose. We tried that and that resulted in drumline winning. Boooo. A bunch of people walked in including Mingyu who was late (how dare he). There was a frenzy of grabbing uniforms and yanking them on. We did our usual warm-ups with people obviously judging us.  
“Push one two three four five six seven eight nine ten eleven stab hold two three four.” the band yelled. The yelling repeats itself until every line has gone through. We have to hold our arms up as if we were playing the trumpet so Seokmin decided it would be funny to tickle everyone's elbow at the end because we aren't allowed to move during a hold.  
After warm-ups that ended a bit early, we walked up to the football field and waited for the football players to finish warming up. When we were waiting, a couple of the upperclassmen decided to try to make a barbershop quartet like thing. Because we're musicians, the singing didn't actually sound too bad. When you're a musician being tone deaf is unheard of so it wasn't painful to listen to. When the football players all filed off of the field, we lined up to play the national anthem. I love doing the anthem because when we march off the field it looks really neat, tidy and kind of trippy. It's trippy because our marching band shoes are really shiny (SHINee). We played the pep songs as usual and when it was halfway through the second quarter, we headed to the track to warm up again and to prepare for our halftime show. At the previous home games our show wasn't finished yet, so it wasn't very long, but now that the show is finished there isn't enough time for the cheerleaders to perform. The band realized before we went on, but I don't think anyone else realized until we got off the field. The cheerleaders had to perform a shortened version on the track. Don't tell anyone but I think that the band is cooler than cheerleaders. At least we are somewhat talented at what we do and aren't complete assholes to people that aren't like us. The band members are assholes to eachother, but not to anyone else. That's actually kind of a lie because we're assholes to whoever sucks at music because it's painful to listen to. Before anyone gets triggered, it's a joke. We dragged the props to the truck that was parked at the side of the track and headed back to the bleachers. I took off my jacket and my shako (don't say hat or else everyone has to run a mile). I then headed to the concession stands with Mingyu and Wonwoo who have become really good friends this season. We bought a small cake to share.  
“ Are you guys ready for Moorpark and Oxnard tomorrow?”  
“Hell yeah!!”  
“Hopefully we'll be able to go to champs”  
“I think that's everyone's dream.”  
After hanging out at the stands for a while, I headed back up to the bleachers and got ready for the 4th quarter. Someone was handing out candy (bad idea) and Junhui was asking for another piece every minute or so.  
“You know you're going to be high on sugar really soon right?” I said.  
“Yeah, but it's good.” he replied.  
We watched the rest of the game playing pep songs here and there.  
Then it was time to leave and pack the truck. We put the props in the truck and headed back to the band room. I took off my uniform and checked that everything was in there. At this time Junhui walked over to me and tried to take the pants of his uniform off sexily. I looked at him weirdly and went back to checking my stuff.  
“I just took my pants off in the band room,” said Junhui.  
“So did I, it's not that big of a deal,” I replied.  
“Only I'm allowed to do that.”  
I stood up and shoved him across the band room. He ran back laughing. He wrapped his arms around me and kept laughing. I bent down and picked up my uniform bag and put it in the closet. I then walked out the door with Junhui right behind me.  
Junhui was still super proud of himself for pissing me off. I'm guessing he told his friend what he did and his friend took off his shorts, but that was fine because he had 2 pairs of shorts on. Junhui of course found this hilarious and proceeded to do so as well except he didn't have another pair of shorts on. I have a habit of looking down, so it looked like I was looking, but I swear I wasn't.  
“Why'd you look?” asked Junhui.  
“I didn't.”  
“Yeah you did. I saw you.”  
Junhui’s friend’s mother arrived at this time and they were going home together for they had been friends since elementary school.  
I hate Wen Junhui.


End file.
